Freshman Lou Barletta defending congressional seat

Republican Lou Barletta faces Democrat Gene Stilp in U.S. House race.

HAZLETON — — It's been said that familiarity breeds contempt. But for U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, familiarity might just lead to a second term in Washington.

Thanks to a once-a-decade redrawing of the state's political topography, Barletta, the Republican former mayor of Hazleton, is running against Democrat Gene Stilp in a dramatically redrawn district that stretches from Wilkes-Barre and his native Hazleton almost into Harrisburg.

That means the key to Barletta's political survival may lie among the voters who know him best — residents of the six counties that composed the original 11th Congressional District, including those in the northern half of Carbon County. When it comes to the three new counties added by mapmakers — Cumberland, Dauphin and Perry counties — Barletta is on a career-defining blind date.

"He has more money and name recognition," Wilkes University political science professor Tom Baldino said of Barletta. "But what could make the difference in this race is the fact that Stilp is well known in the part of the district where he lives. If [Stilp] pulls a rabbit out of the hat, this race could be close."

It took Barletta three tries to unseat longtime Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski. He finally succeeded in 2010. For a decade or more, Democrats enjoyed a 57 percent to 31 percent registration edge in the seat.

Democrats still marginally outnumber Republicans 44 percent to 43 percent in the redrawn district, a tidbit that Barletta mentions often — and with no small measure of satisfaction — during an interview in his campaign headquarters in a Hazleton office tower whose rehabilitation he oversaw as mayor.

In the two years since that election, when Barletta was just one member of a large GOP freshman class, he's had his share of frustration.

There's a world of difference between being a mayor — where no detail is too small to micromanage — and being a rank-and-file congressman who, like a kid at the grown-ups' table at Thanksgiving, is occasionally seen and rarely heard.

"It's been extremely frustrating and disappointing," he said. "I see the failures of Washington and how they happen. I'm not blinded by all the marble. I'm sometimes forced to vote on policies that aren't good. But the alternatives are worse."

He ticks off a list — continuing resolutions for farm and transportation appropriations bills or budget measures to keep the federal government going while Congressional leaders struggled to come to agreement.

"They tell you, 'This is the last day and tomorrow America is coming to an end if you don't vote for it,' " he said.

For Stilp, 62, his campaign against Barletta is a star turn after years refining a reputation as one of Pennsylvania's foremost political performance artists.

The Democratic activist, occasional consultant and onetime ally of Ralph Nader travels to campaign events in a school bus he's painted pink and outfitted with a pig's ears and tail.

A gigantic inflatable pink pig — Pignelope — which gained fame during the debate over the 2005 legislative pay raises that roiled Harrisburg, is rarely far away. Stilp has also been known to cart out oversized hypodermic needles and wheelchairs to make his point.

For Stilp, who was born and raised in northeastern Pennsylvania and now lives outside Harrisburg, the props and penchant for outsized antics are key tools when he's being out-raised and outspent.

As of June 30, Barletta had $335,910 in his campaign account, compared with Stilp's $21,010, Federal Election Commission data indicate.

In an interview, Stilp accused his Republican competitor of being beholden to such special interests as the oil and gas industries and the insurance industry. It's a charge Barletta rejects.

"I'm going to have a harder time financing … but we'll compete and we'll debate," Stilp said. "I've never been in a campaign that was extremely well-funded. I've always been the financial underdog — not on the issues. But that's OK."

The two candidates are poles apart on the issues, including the federal health care reform act known as Obamacare.

Stilp supports Obamacare; Barletta wants to repeal the act and replace it with measures that he believes will make health coverage more affordable but not result in broad government control of health care.

Barletta says he'd keep parts of the law allowing children to stay on their parents' health insurance policies until their 20s. He also wants to continue a ban on denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Both are popular among voters. But he'd scrap the law's universal mandate and instead support allowing people to cross state lines to purchase insurance coverage.

The 11th District, redrawn after the Census for 2013 and beyond, includes at least parts of Carbon, Columbia, Cumberland, Dauphin, Luzerne, Montour, Northumberland, Perry and Wyoming counties.